Sunday, 29 March 2009

House-sitting In Ireland

Back to normal life after my sojourn in Ireland where I was house-sitting for friends in Dun Laoghaire, just south of Dublin. I had a wonderful time, the first two days I was by myself except for my friend's cat Max who I was looking after. For some reason cats seem to like me even though I am a dog person (though I don't dislike cats, just never owned one) and the first evening saw Max, who is very shy, sitting contentedly on my lap.

On Wednesday my friend Debbi joined me and that evening we walked to La Strada, a restaurant in Dun Laoghaire that we have been to many, many times for meals and , as usual, it was lovely.

Next day we did the U2 thing and went down to Hanover Quay to see if the band was around. At first we thought they might be and decided to wait for a while. It was typical changeable March weather, one minute we were basking in sunshine that, now it was officially Spring, had warmth in it. Then a squally shower would suddenly start accompanied by a strong wind that whipped around us in all directions causing havoc to our umbrellas! I said jokingly. "All we need is hail now!" I must be psychic because five minutes later we had a hail shower! That was enough even for us and we called it a day.

That evening we stayed in and got fish and chips which were the largest portions I have ever seen in my life!

Friday morning we got up very early as U2.com said the Wembley 2 tickets were going on sale at 8am. But when I logged on to Ticketmaster it said they were going on sale at 9am, we could have had an extra hour in bed, thanks a lot U2.com! Just before 9am the tickets went on sale but Ticketmaster was too busy, so I went to Ticketline and within a couple of minutes we had our tickets! So easy that we could hardly believe it.

We also decided to bid on the Red Zone auction. There is part of me that doesn't really like something like that - that if you've got the money you can pay to get a great view. But the other part of me really wants to be very close to the band for one show. This time we haven't got many standing tickets, mainly because we feel we can't cope with standing for hours in a queue then hours in the stadium anymore. We've done it numerous times over the years and it is gradually getting harder to do. So, the Red Zone is perfect for us, standing close to the band without the hardship. If we are successful with that we'll hopefully be able to sell our tickets to fans at cost price.

The highlight of our Friday was going for a meal at the Town Bar and Grill in central Dublin. We've been there a couple of times before and the food is wonderful there. It is an expensive place (though worth it) but we did this trip on a budget except for that evening, it was our treat to ourselves. Though we did have a bit of a panic about having enough money for the taxi home so decided to find a cashpoint and get some more money before our meal. We had to walk miles to find one, (well maybe that's an exaggeration but it was a long way, especially when you are really hungry!) but with the extra cash in our purses we knew we wouldn't end up walking the last few miles home later!

The meal was a delicious and well served as ever, the place has a lovely ambiance, low lighting, a piano playing in the background and, despite being expensive has been full every time we have been there.

That meal was a great way to end our trip to Dublin - our next visit will be in July when we are there for the U2 Croke Park! I'm so excited just thinking about it!

4 comments:

i agree with you on the red zone stuff - haven't bid on any yet, but probably will try for a pair of red zones at at least one of the u.s. shows. if the final price ends up being lower than the highest seated price, it seems worth it.